Nameless
by Min Daae
Summary: Kind of goes with 'Mandos.' Dark, angsty. He had deliberately lost his name...a game of self-deception.


I.

He had no name.

He had lost it deliberately, because without a name no one could call him, without a name there was no one to pin the never ending guilt upon, without a name he didn't need to think on things like past or future but only present.

He still didn't know how he had lost it – how one could simply leave a name behind. It was as though he'd just risen one day and left it lying behind him, and never gone back for it. He didn't want the name. Didn't want the name and everything that came with it.

It was better just to forget.

Sometimes things seemed about to come back, he would start to think of memories or names of places too closely, and then he would flee, frantic to escape the trap of himself encroaching on him. No. Much easier to be no one.

It wasn't that he didn't remember. He remembered everything. But it was all very distant, happening to someone else – _not me, _he could tell himself, through every nightmare and vision, _not me, it's not me, it's someone else _and so could close his eyes and look away and not lose everything he had left.

Which was little enough, but the ability to move, to walk, to run. He ran whenever things got too close, until he was tired of running. He tired of everything, even sleeping. Sleeping, after all, he could not guard as well, and while some sleeps were blissful blackness from beginning to end, not all of them were so merciful.

There were others here, but he didn't look at them. And if they seemed about to speak his name, he ran again. He didn't want to hear it. Losing the name once had been hard enough. He didn't want to try to forget again. Was afraid if he remembered he wouldn't even be able to rise to walk again.

It's only possible to run for so long.

II.

"Tyelkormo!"

And like that, in three syllables, the carefully constructed illusion shatters. Glass splinters and nothing more. He knows his name, he knows his fate, he knows his guilt. And it is too much. He doesn't know the voice, at least not at first, and can't turn to find who it is, not on considering what he might see – accusing eyes he knows so well - and so with a half wild cry he takes the last of his strength and runs for one last time.

He crashes far too soon, coming to his knees and then to his side on a plateau half grass and half stone that he wasn't even aware of trying to ascend. And so he falls.

Tyelkormo Turcafinwe the very not so fair. He knows the name now, and knows everything that goes with it.

He curls into himself and decides that he will never rise again. Not even when the stars fall and the second music begins. Forgetting is nice enough, but he can spend the rest of forever remembering.

As penance.

III.

This time his name was whispered. This time the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. He didn't stir, arms still curled around his head, eyes closed like a child pretending to be asleep. The stillness of a body that never plans to move again.

The voice would not leave him alone. "Tyelkormo."

_No. _One word, and it didn't have to be spoken. The sense of it was clear enough.

"Tyelkormo Turcafinwë. Third son of Fëanor."

_I do not want that name. It is not my name. I lost that name, let me be nameless. _

"Have you forgotten everything so much?"

_No. I remember. _

The voice asked no more, and left him to his silence, there, because he didn't want to move. Everything could be done now. Tyelkormo Turcafinwë was done now. He only needed to forget his name.

If he could forget his name again he could leave everything behind here again and somehow it would be better. As it hadn't been in – how long? How long had he been dead? How long before that?

IV.

The voice decided he needed something more. This time he stirred from his stupor of memory because someone's arm was around his shoulder as they said his name, why won't they let him leave it behind? He didn't want it anymore. Didn't want to try to bear it.

But he had to open his eyes or they would never go away. He uncurled, slightly, looked up with blank dull dead eyes. Something profound somewhere had gone from him. He stared up at the face to his side without comprehension for moments, long moments, before turning his head away again. Slipping back into memories or trying to forget, or perhaps both, never reaching either.

"Tyelko…where have you been?" Stop. Stop stop stop. Don't say my name. "Look at me, please, look at me so I at least know that _you_ are real…"

But I'm not, something in him protested. I'm not real. Perhaps I never was. Perhaps none of this is real. None of it ever was. The thought, somehow, fails to soothe him. He wanted to think that perhaps if he pretended hard enough that he didn't exist, that none of this existed, that perhaps he would just vanish into nothingness.

But he knew it would never happen.

Two arms around him, trying to haul him closer. He could almost feel the body warmth seeping into him and tried to shy away from it. No, let me stay cold. I'll forget more quickly if I'm cold. I'll remember more quickly if I'm cold. I am not meant to be here.

"Tyelko, please, look at me. I know it's you."

This time, he lifted his head and spoke, one word, one word only. "No."

No explanation was offered for the word, for what it meant. It didn't have to be given. Not here. Here, the speaker wrapped his arms around Tyelkormo nameless Turcafinwë and didn't let go. "Sorry. Going to have to do better than that."

VII.

They stayed like that for a long, long time. One voice, every so often, just talking, not about anything in particular. Again, it's the name that comes back first.

"Moryofinwë?"

"That's right."

They stayed where they were, though, tangled together because it was better than being alone, and both of them needed to heal. Both of them needed time. And time was something both of them were not in short supply of.

VIII.

Do you want to know a secret?

There is no grass, no stone, no open space, no running. There is no brother, no voice, no healing.

Tyelkormo Turcafinwë stays where he has been since death, eyes closed, slumped on his side in a small dark room, losing his mind. Going in circles.

He forgets his name. He forgets where he is. Forgets why he is here and where the hurts are from. Sometimes he can even deceive himself that he is nameless.

But it always comes back to this. This room, this place, this quiet, broken shell who stares at nothing with blank grey eyes.

It always comes back to the darkness that never ends.


End file.
